Web Release

31
March -- From Andrew Oberhammer -- It
seems that not only the auto industry is going the route of B2B exchanges: http://www.redherring.com/industries/2000/0328/ind-exchanges032800.html?id=yahoo
This week, the US airline manufacturers announced a plan similar to the
automobile manufacturers. The article also mentions steps the paper industry has
taken and what is on the bubble for other industries.

30
March -- From Rich Cannon -- Readings in Preparation for Tuesday's Class on Web
Design and Consulting -- In addition to the readings outlined on your syllabus,
I suggest that you may want to go to the library or book store and pick up and
browse through one or more of the following web design books we have found
useful:

30 March -- From Harald Luckerbauer
--Does e-commerce pose a threat to
the MBA? In the US, since 1998 a number of
top MBA schools have seen a decline in applications. Notably among these schools
were Stanford (-6.4%), Berkeley (-10.6%), and MIT (-8.3%). In contrast, Harvard,
Wharton and Columbia amongst others, are still dealing with 10%+ annual
increases in numbers of applicants. These schools are moving towards becoming
"clicks and mortar" business schools (a term coined by Andy Grove CEO of Intel)
by investing heavily in developing technology facilities within their
campus.

NET SPEED AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET - Scientists
at Lucent's Bell Labs have set a new record for transmitting data over
fiber-optic cable by moving 3.28 terabits per second of data over 300 kilometers
of Lucent's TrueWave optical fiber. At this rate, Lucent's fiber in one
second could transmit three times the volume of daily Internet traffic for the
whole world. Within years, fiber-optic cable could move tens of thousands
of terabits per second of data. This tremendous bandwidth growth will be
fueled by the speed of lasers used to encode data and the number of wavelengths
a single fiber can carry at once, says AT&T Labs President David
Nagel. Researchers are now developing terabit lasers, and the number of
pulses a single laser produces is doubling every 18 months. In addition,
the number of wavelengths a single fiber can carry at one time is doubling every
year. Eighty-wavelength systems are already available, and scientists are
working on 1,000-wavelength systems. The Bell Labs' record accounts for
less than half a percent of the potential capacity of current optical networks,
according to Kerry Vahala, professor of applied physics at the California
Institute of Technology. (Wired News, 21 March 2000)

28 March -- From dr.k. - Remainder - April 4 Class
with Rich Cannon will run from 5:15-7:50PM(Both
sections 1 & 2).Topic: Managerial and
Technical Issues in Web Design and Consulting. The first half of class
(5:15-6:30) will cover web design issues.

The
second half of class (roughly 6:40-
7:50 will be directed at fielding student project related questions. Each
group leader should prepare and discuss (1-2 minutes max.) one major pressing
problem from their consulting study that they would like Rich to address based
on his experience.

28 March -- From dr.k. - All class notes are posted and up-to-date. Upon investigation, the
trouble I was having last week with posting the PPT lecture slides to the FTP
server was the result of "theweb" server's disk being full. When I tried to ftp
slides it would truncate my files and caused them to be corrupted. The computer
department has cleared more space on the "theweb" and the notes have all
been uploaded and are working. ..............Time for a web hosting
service?

14 March 2000 -- From dr. k. - 2 nice features
in Business 2.0 - The 10 Driving Principles of the New Economy - a set of ten
important essays on the eEconomy click
here. Also, a set of articles that I found very useful on Internet
start-ups.

Gordon Whiting writes:[Gordon.Whiting@IIM-AR.COM]
I found the course outline for class 6A to be quite interesting -
especially the part about AUCNET. I developed the Aucnet back office vehicle
inspection, tracking and billing systems ( the auction software came from
Japan). While Aucnet has been a great success in Japan, it was a failure in the
United States. They were in operation from 9/94 thru 6/98. Technically, it
worked as advertised, but the used car market is drastically different in this
country. Lesson to be learned: Electronic commerce will succeed in some cultures
and fail in others because of general market
differences.

10 March
2000 -- From Dixon -- I have tallied the Research Briefings rankings from
the emails I received. Each groups votes were weighted such that a 1st place
vote received 1 pt. while a 10th place vote received 1/10 pt. The weighted
pts. were then totaled by topic. The resulting top 10 websites are given
below.

You may contact me if you wish to know the exact
ranking of your team's Research Briefing website as evaluated by your
classmates.

3 March 2000-- From Ahmed
Elaasar -- Good Glossary of eBusiness Terms -- Click
Here you will find a glossary that I think is pretty
useful. I also read a great article on enablingB2B
e-commerce, click
here to view it!

3 March 2000-- From Alex
Kuruz --- Upcoming
Event All USC eBusienss Students Welcome. *** The Duke E-Business Forum For High
Tech and Growth Companies ***

2 March 2000-- From dr. k --- Have a Great Spring Break --- But Don't Forget
---Reminder -
Please e-mail your top 10 research briefing
rankings to Dixon by 5 PM Friday March . Please review each team's (from
both sections) Research
Briefing websites. Then based on your opinion, please rank order from
highest (highest being number 1) to lowest (being number 10) the 10 most useful
and informative websites. You can include your own website in your
ranking, if you believe it is within the top 10. Please e-mail Dixon Wilcox at
wilcoxp1@spanky.badm.sc.edu
your rankings. You need only list the research briefings topic titles and your
numeric rankings.

In making your deliberations, you might consider
the criteria by which your website will be graded, including:

Usefulness/Content - How useful is the
information? - comprehensive, clear, and concise?

Organization/Ease-of-use - Is the site well
organized and easy to navigate? Are topic headings well used (a TOC or
bookmarks)?

Aesthetics - Websites are a predominately visual
communication medium. The site should be visually appealing. Use
graphics enough to be professional but don't overload.

Supporting material - How useful are the links to
other sites? Does it give some indication of what the linked site has in
store.

Other specific aspects which you may wish to consider
could be:

Loading Speed (How long did it take the pages to
load?)

Interactivity (creative use of graphics)

Relevance or Interest (Was the topic
interesting?)

All your e-mail responses to Dixon will be
confidential. While these ranking will not influence my grading of your research
briefing, I will announce in class the top 10 ranked research briefing websites
according to your colleagues' rankings.

25 February 2000 -- From Dr. K --
We Predicted It! Read all
about it -- click
here.

25 February 2000 -- From Dr. K --
Don't forget to e-mail and set a time up so that I can
meet with your group to discuss the progress of your projects. Times still
available March 1 (late afternoon and early evening) or March 2 - morning and
late afternoon; Or, March 15 all day, March 16 all day. Please try to schedule
within one of these time slots. Also have your project status report with you
for these meetings.

21 February 2000 11PM-- From Dr.K.--
Please note the following change in our course plan. Due to
circumstances beyond his control, Mark Grondin of 12snap.com had to postpone his
Tuesday February 29 talk to the class until Tuesday March 14. To accommodate
this change, we will move the our B-B (Part 1) class from March 14 to February
29. Please checked the revised syllabus' course
plan and schedule for further details. Also, please check for other
confirmed speakers and classes.

15 February 2000 3PM --From Dixon -- As a
reminder, please email me your web page address when you have completed your
personal web page assignment. Sent it to: wilcoxp1@spanky.badm.sc.edu I will take a look at it and let you know if any requirements are not
met. If you do not hear from me you can assume that you have met all the
requirements. Also, Please have your Research Briefing links working by February
22. Note: you only need to upload one copy of your research briefing to the
server. This copy can reside in any of the team members directories with
appropriate navigation from and back to each members homepage. Keeping
multiple copies in various directories usually leads to confusion and
inconsistencies. You will need to send me the address of the briefing (including
the htm file name) when you are done. Thanks.

14 February 2000 1PM -- From Dr. K. -What's
your dot-com IQ? Just for fun, I thought I'd toss out a quick questionnaire that
very unscientifically determines how far down the electronic commerce path
you've traveled, both from personal and professional standpoints.
What's
your dot-com IQ? click
here and find out.

By
the way, you can also test your eIQ (emotional IQ) by clicking here. And, you can take the classic
intelligence IQ test by clicking
here. Now that you are completely depressed, you can go back to work
on your Dutch Flower case that is due tomorrow.

9 February 2000 5PM -- DOT.COM SUPER BOWL TELEVISION ADS DRIVE MAJOR INCREASES IN UNIQUE
VISITORS ACCORDING TO MEDIAMETRIX. Webmd.comleads the pack with several newcomers close behind. Media Metrix reports top TV Super Bowl
advertiser's payoffs - click
herefor
story and stats.

1 February 2000 1:22PM -- From Dr.
K. It looks like we will have class on Thursday 2/10 from 6:15-8:00PM. I will
confirm this via the Announcements page next week.

In addition, I have tentatively scheduled a Darren
Ware, Director of Marketing at Visualcom as a guest speaker for Thursday March
16 for 6:00 - 7:45pm. I will confirm as we move closer to this date. The
topic: EBusiness in Latin America: Examining International Business Models.
I have updated the syllabus to reflect these changes.

1 February 2000 9AM-- From Dixon Wilcox - I have scheduled a Web building
tutorial session for the afternoon of Monday, February 7 from 4:00 - 6:30 in the
335 computer lab. This session is designed for students with little or no prior
Web page building experience. Also, I have scheduled the 701 computer lab on
February 14 and 16 from 4:00 to 6:30 in the afternoon. I, or Khawja Saeed, will
be available in the lab during those times to answer any questions you may have
regarding your Web building assignment. Finally, you can also e-mail me
questions at WILCOXP1@spanky.badm.sc.edu. Don't
forget, the online website design tutorial is available at http://theweb.badm.sc.edu/798mis/tutorial/webdesi.htm.
You should ftp your personal WebPages, as well as your Research Briefing
websites, to the class' student directories at http://theweb.badm.sc.edu/798GSTUD/
Make sure you put your files under your own subdirectory!

31 January 2000 11:22PM --
From David Humphrey --I found this
article about IBM's contribution to the XML in today's NY Times and thought it
might be of interest. Here's a link to the
article.

31 January 2000 11:00PM -- From
Shane Bell (shane.bell@vicomsoft.com) - Subject:
Firewalls. Vicomsoft has an informative document about Firewall
Security which is interesting to both novice and advanced users at: http://www.vicomsoft.com/knowledge/reference/firewalls1.html.
I just thought you might like to put a link to it from your site. The document
is neutral from the point of view of vendors or service providers, but it does
answer a lot of questions frequently asked by users involved with Firewall
Security.

28 January 2000 11:22AM -- From Dr.
K. - -The results are in! Companies have been selected and teams can commence
work! Click to
access listing of company teams and members. Teams should make initial
contact with the designated contact person listed below in the company
descriptions. Good Luck!

27 January 2000
10AM-- From Dr. K. -- a review of the
Student Home Pages & E-mailhttp://theweb.badm.sc.edu/798mis/798st00.htm
still reveals that many students have not e-mailed Dixon Wilcox with their
research briefing topics. Please form your briefing teams very soon, make your
topic selection and send your choices to Dixon at wilcoxp1@spanky.badm.sc.eduhe will post your choices to the website. Ning Chang is looking for a
team (changning@hotmail.com)!

27 January 2000
9:39AM -- From Dr.
K.--

To confirm, we will have a class today (Thursday January 27) from
6:15-8:00PM to discuss the Ford case, both sections 1 and 2 should
attend. We will also finalize project selections.

Tuesday Feb 1 we will have
a guest speaker, Rich Cannon -- CEO Renaissance Interactive, from 5:15– 7:50.
Both sections 1 and 2 will attend during this time. There will not be an earlier
class for section 2 on this date. Both sections will end class at
7:50PM.

Please review and be ready to make your
selection on Thursday January 27.

Note:

·DO NOT CONTACT any person at
these companies until such time as I have officially assigned the company to
your team.

·Once your group has been assigned a firm,
please contact the person designated with an asterisk "*". This is your main
contact at the company and the person that will arrange your subsequent
interviews and data collection.

·You must be very effective in your
interactions with each company. Unless the company designates otherwise, you
have only 15 hours of on-site contact time (This is the condition I committed to
in the agreement with each firm to participate in the project). You must very
carefully plan all contacts and meetings before you go on-site to ensure that
you gather the information you need within this 15-hour contact limit. If the
company requests more on-site contact time and/or the team would like to spend
more time on site, please speak to me and we will discuss it.

A global manufacturer and
supplier of quality electronic connector products.

Unknown -

medium

26 January 2000 1Pm -- From Dr. K. -
- For all you would be dot.com folks. click
here

25 January 2000 2:15PM -- Afternoon Guest
Speaker Update -- At this point I have not hear anything to suggest
that our guest speaker is not coming. So, we will have class
tonight. If, however, you feel you can not safely make it to class
today, please to not feel compelled come. As noted earlier, Section 2 will
first meet between 5:00-6:00 and Section 1 will meet from 7:45- 8:45. Both
Section 1 and 2 will attend a guest lecture between 6:15-7:45.

25 January 2000 12:20 -- From Dr. K.
-- I have received reports that some students are confused about whether
we will have class. One more time. As of 9AM this morning the USC main web page
stated we have classes starting at 11AM. It was not until about 10:30AM
that USC announced on their web page that classes would be cancelled for the
day. Therefore I could not alert our guest speaker that we were having a
cancellation until after he had left to come here. Therefore, we have a guest
speaker that is flying in to speak tonight. I have no way to directly
communicate with this person between now and when the class begins
tonight. Therefore, at this time, I must assume that he will be
speaking tonight. I will be there and encourage you to attend if you can safety
make it. If not, stay home.

25 January 2000 9AM -- From Dr. K.
-- Well I trust you survived the greatest snowfall since Hurricane Hugo! The sun
is out and according to the USC webpage we will have class tonight as scheduled.
As noted earlier, Section 2 will first meet between 5:00-6:00 and Section 1 will
meet from 7:45- 8:45. Both Section 1 and 2 will attend a guest lecture between
6:15-7:45. In this regards, I am sorry to report that i just learned that Dave
Cozzens will not be able to get here given traveling problems. In his
place we are lucky to have John Dobbs, one of the other principle strategist
within Cambridge's Digital Business Strategy practice. Let keep our fingers
crossed that his flight connections will be made and that he will be able to
join us on time.

25 January 2000 -- From Dr. K. --
Your SOAP assignment states:
Firm consulting teams should be established (by 1/21/00) - Students will form
consulting teams of 5 students to investigate firms.Each team will select a project leader
who will act as spokesperson and Point of Contact (POC) for the team.Team leader should e-mail the instructor
with the names of team members.

I would like project leaders to send me the full names of each study team
member before class today, if you have not already done
so!

25 January
2000 -- From Dr. K. -- Based on substantial student requests to "get going", I am moving the project selection dates up to
Thursday January 27th class. Please solidify your own contacts today and
tomorrow and have reviewed the list of potential companies I have listed below.
We will conduct a drawing for draft selection order. Please be prepared to make
a final selection on Thursday night. It is best to have several different
company fall back positions!

18 January 2000 -- From Dr. K. -- It
now appears that we will have a total of 13 teams (5 students each) across both
class sections. I encourage you to continue to look for a company that you might
be interested in working with over the semester.

I have also been working on securing some companies
interested in participating in our class project. The following companies have
conveyed to me an initial commitment to participate in the our class
project as clients if they were selected by student teams. As I mentioned, we
will conduct a drawing for order of selection and teams will have the right to
either go with the company they have contacted (if they have secured a company)
or go with one I have found:

Several of these firms are rather small companies and you
certainly might to better finding a company on your own.

I may add
one or two more companies to this list, as commitments come in, but I do not
anticipate that I will adding many more. Please do not contact any of the
companies above until I give you permission after our drawing.

17 January 2000 -- From Dr. K. --
NOTE: I will make changes to our syllabus course schedule/plan as speaker dates
and class scheduling changes are confirmed. I suggest that you refer to the
web-based syllabus, as opposed to the paper syllabus that I handed out in the
1st class, for the final word on scheduling.

16 January 2000 -- From Dr. K. -- On
Tuesday January 25 we will have a guest speaker, David Cozzens -- Vice President
of Digital Strategy, Cambridge Technology Partners, from 6:15 - 7:45PM. Both
Section 1 and 2 will attend this session. Section 2 will also meet between
5:00-6:00 and Section 1 will meet from 7:45- 8:45.

Unless I let you know
otherwise, Tuesday Feb 1 we will have a guest speaker, Rich Cannon -- CEO
Renaissance Interactive, from 6:15 – 8:50. Both sections 1 and 2 will attend
during this time. There will not be an earlier class for section 2 on this
date.

15 January 2000 -- From Dr. K. -- As
it appears now, we will have a class on Thursday January 27 6:15-8:00PM to
discuss the Ford case, both sections 1 and 2 should attend. I will finalize this
one week before the class.

14 January 2000 -- From Dr. K. -- I
have heard from several teams already and I am glad to learn that you have some
very strong leads on possible consulting clients. As I promised, listed below
are the names of companies that have participated in this course in the past.
Unless you have a specific lead with one of these companies that would suggest
they want further consulting assistance, I would suggest that you do not contact
these companies.

An important source of potential companies
would appear to be companies where IMBA, MBA and MIBS alumni are working! As
well as companies that have sponsored internships and field consulting projects
in the past.

12 January 2000 -- From Dr. K. --The class
lecture notes can be downloaded or viewed in PowerPoint from the http://theweb.badm.sc.edu/798GSTUD/notesS00/
subdirectory. Out of courtesy I suggest that you do not print the
slides in their full size format on the school printer. The files are quite
large. I suggest that you download the files to a disk and read then just like
any other PowerPoint file. If you must print the files, print the slides at 6
slides per page. Go to the PowerPoint print menu, under "print what," select 6
slides per page. This approach saves paper, processing time and has little
impact on the readability of the slides.

We will use this
announcement page to stay current with course events. Please check it
periodically for updates and changes to our course plan.

As a first announcement, I
wanted to let everybody know that the Ford Motor Company and the KPMG teaching
cases have been ordered from Harvard Business School and should be arriving at
the USC College Bookstore on Greene Street on Friday.

Take care, --- more
announcements to come. Again, it is great to be working with you! Best regards,
Dr.K.